Introduction
The first national census of England & Wales was carried out in 1801 and further
enumerations were carried out in 1811, 1821 and 1831. There was no requirement
to record names and so most of these returns are genealogically useless. In a
few areas, however, names were recorded and records have survived. See Reading
list below for areas covered. Names were first required in 1841 and the first
recognisably "modern" census was taken in 1851. The process has continued every
10 years with the exception of 1941 when wartime conditions prevailed. A 100
year closure rule applies to viewing the records.

The
census returns are of immeasurable value to the family historian since they show
families as households and provide details of ages, relationships and
birthplaces. These details can be helpful in locating events within civil
registration and are invaluable as a springboard back into the period before
1837 when research will depend upon the use of parish registers.

How
the Census was Taken
The
basis for taking the census was the system of Registration Districts which had
been introduced for civil registration of births, marriages and deaths (itself
based on the Poor Law Union boundaries established in 1832). Each registration
sub-district was divided into a number of Enumeration Districts and an
Enumerator appointed to collect information in each. The Enumerator travelled
around his appointed district distributing schedules to each household to be
completed with the details of all people present in the household on census
night. Shortly after census night, he would return to collect the forms. His
next job was to complete an enumeration book by transcribing the details from
each schedule in turn. He would also complete some summary information and
describe the district and its boundaries. He then forwarded his enumeration
book(s), together with the schedules, to the Registrar who in turn sent them to
the Registrar General. The schedules were at some stage discarded and no longer
survive so we are dependent upon the details as transcribed by the Enumerator.
Following analysis of the returns and publication of statistical reports, the
enumeration books were put into storage and are held under a 100 year closure
rule.

From 1911
onwards, the enumeration books were discontinued and the household schedules
were sent to the Registrar General for analysis.

Enumeration District Details
Each
enumerator was required to include a description of the area for which he was
responsible in a section at the front of his enumeration book. This should
describe the boundary of the area, usually by reference to the boundary streets
in a city but possibly in less precise terms for a village or small town. He
will also list the streets and occasionally institutions within the enumeration
district. Enumerators might start on a main road but then divert to enumerate
small side streets, courts or tenements before returning to enumerate further
households on the original road. Streets may therefore be enumerated in small
stretches scattered throughout the district return. Boundaries were frequently
defined down the middle of a street so, for example, odd house numbers and even
house numbers may be found in two different enumeration districts. Similarly a
long road might both form a boundary between districts and also pass through
several districts. You may have to search ten or more districts in the case of a
major highway.

Separate (and slightly different format) books were completed by those
responsible for large institutions such as hospitals, army barracks or
workhouses. There are separate returns for those on board naval and merchant
vessels though the rules for enumeration of those on board ships changed from
census to census.

The
Data in the Enumeration Books for 1841
The
1841 census returns are considerably different (and less informative) than those
for later years. They also contain some pitfalls for the unwary. They are,
however, if used with caution, still highly valuable.

The
information in the 1841 enumeration books consists of:

Place - in a
city this is likely to be a street (but very unlikely to include a house
number), in villages may be only the village name but farms may be named, as may
public houses.

Names -
"middle" names or initials will usually not be recorded.

Age - These
are stated in whole years for children up to 15, but rounded down to nearest 5
years for those aged over 15 e. g. a person aged 47 would be entered as 45.

Sex - males
and females are differentiated by placing the ages in separate columns.

Employment -
This will usually be quite a short description e. g. "Farmer", "Male Servant",
Ag(ricultural) Lab(ourer)". Several common abbreviations are used including MS -
Male Servant, FS - Female Servant, FWK - Framework Knitter and J - Journeyman.

Where born -
there is one column "whether born in the county" in which will be entered "Y" or
"N", and a second column for persons born outside England & Wales which may
contain "S" for Scotland, "I" for Ireland or "F" for Foreign Parts.

Caveats
The
peculiar way in which ages are to be recorded reflects the practice in earlier
(anonymous) censuses but 1841 was the last year in which ages were recorded in
this way. You will, however, occasionally find precise ages stated for adults.
These "precise" ages may, however, not be trustworthy as is discussed below. You
should also note that relationships are not stated and care must be taken in
inferring them from ages and the order in which names are listed. Although the
first name will usually be the head of the household, do not infer that the
similarly-aged woman who appears next is his wife. She may be his sister or more
distant relation.

Data
in the Enumeration Books for 1851 Onwards
The
data in these later books is considerably more helpful than for 1841. It
consists of:

Schedule
Number - the number of the original (and now lost) schedule.

Name of Street
etc. - may contain house numbers. Villages will often not have street names.

Name - will
generally, but not always, contain middle names or at least initials.

Relation to
Head of Family - this may require care in interpretation

Condition -
Married, Unmarried or Widowed

Age - now in
exact years. Infants under one year often given in months, weeks and days.

Sex - separate
age columns as above.

Occupation -
rather more precise. Acreage and number of men and boys employed given for
farmers.

Where born -
will usually be the county and parish. If outside England & Wales will usually
be the country only.

Whether blind,
deaf or dumb - the disability should be specified. Expanded from 1871 to include
whether imbecile or lunatic (notes for the enumerator explain the difference!).

Number of
rooms occupied - from 1891 only, the number of rooms if fewer than five.

Whether
employer, employed or neither - from 1891 only, three columns, one to be marked

Houses and Households
The
enumerator was required to indicate the boundaries between separate houses and
separate households sharing a common building. In 1851, uniquely, the division
between separate houses was indicated by a line across the first four columns of
the page and between separate families in the same house (e.g. occupying rooms in
a shared house) by a line across part of the second column and across the third
and fourth columns. In other years, houses are separated by two oblique strokes
and households by a single oblique stroke at the right hand side of the "Houses"
column.

Numbering System
The
census returns are numbered by The National Archives in distinct series for each census year.
Those for 1841 and 1851 were deposited by the Home Office and are filed in Class
HO107. Later ones were deposited by the Registrar General and are filed in Class
RG9 (1861), RG10 (1871), RG11 (1881), RG12 (1891) and RG13 (1901). Within each
class, collections of books are numbered with a "Piece" reference up to 4 digits
long e. g. HO107/2345, RG11/35. How many books make up a piece may differ from
census year to census year.

Each
enumeration book's pages are numbered in sequence but since there may be several
books in each piece, a page number may be repeated several times and so it is
difficult to refer to an individual page with any precision. To overcome this
problem, a system called "folio numbering" is used. The several books making up
the piece were stitched along the spine to make one large book. A sequence of
numbers, starting at 1 was then stamped onto the top right hand corner of the
front of each page. This is called the "folio number" and applies to the
numbered page and its un-numbered reverse. Since the pieces are filmed
page-by-page, folio numbers will appear on alternate images and refer to the
numbered image and the one which immediately follows. Folio numbers provide a
unique reference to locate an entry within a given piece.

Where to Find the Census returns
The
original books are deposited at The National Archives, Kew. They are only available to the
public by advance request and where the filmed copy is illegible.

The
enumeration books have been filmed and can be seen on microfilm or microfiche at
a variety of places:

Libraries/Local Studies - probably have returns for their immediate area of
interest

Family History
Societies - possibly have some returns for their area of interest.

LDS Family
History Centres - can order copies of films for any area.

The
Gibson Guide "Census Returns 1841-1891 on Microfilm" provides a good listing of
local holdings.

It is, however, considerably
more common to access the census returns on the internet (see below)

The Census on the InternetThe census enumeration books (schedules for 1911) have all been digitally
scanned and can be accessed via a number of web sites. These sites charge for
access to the images, though use of the indexes is generally free of charge.
Payment may be by subscription or pay-to-view, according to the site. Sites
which offer census images include:

It should be noted that each
provider has created his own indexes and that these may differ. It is not
uncommon for an entry which has been incorrectly indexed by one provider to be
correctly indexed by another.

The quality of indexing is not
always what one might wish. Much of the work has been done by workers outside
the UK for whom English was not their first language and who would have no
familiarity with local surnames. This means that names which may be instantly
recognised when seen on the page may be meaningless as they appear in the index.
When using these indexes, it is not common for the search to fail simply because
the family name has been mis-read. One should not assume that a nil return means
that the family was not correctly enumerated. In such cases, the use of
traditional finding aids (see below) may help.

Finding Aids
The
immediate problem we face is "which piece do we need to search to find a
specific place?". The National Archives have produced indexes listing townships and villages
and indicating the piece number(s) required. For larger towns and cities the
problem is that there may be a large number of pieces involved. For these
places, street indexes have been compiled.

Name
and street indexes have been produced for many areas, usually by members of
family history societies. These may only list surnames (with the folio numbers
on which they appear) or may be full transcripts of the returns or anything
in-between. There is a fully indexed transcript to the 1881 census for the whole
of mainland Britain available on fiche and CDROM. For other years, national
coverage is patchy with 1851 being the year for which the largest number of
returns have been indexed. Indexes will mostly be published in booklet form
covering relatively small areas though a few counties have been indexed fully
and the resulting databases are searchable for a fee. The returns for 1851 for
Norfolk, Devon and Warwickshire have been published on CDROM by the LDS Church.
The LDS have also sponsored a complete transcription of the 1881 returns and
these can be accessed free of charge at
www.familysearch.org

Finding People in the Census
If you
are fortunate, the census returns you wish to search will be indexed and this
will lead you directly to the census entry. Otherwise, you will need to find an
address to search. In a village, a blanket search through the returns of a few
hundred households will not take long but if the family was living in a city,
even if the district is known, such a search would be very much a last resort.

Possible sources of addresses include:

Family
documents, letters, etc.

Birth,
marriage and death certificates

Wills and
administrations

Trade
Directories, particularly those published in census year or the year after.

Newspaper
birth, marriage and death announcements

Cemetery grave
books.

You may
find it useful to use a contemporary map, for example the Alan Godfrey reprints
of Ordnance Survey maps, as a means of "following the enumerator" and placing
the census address into its local context. Note that the boundary between
enumeration districts will often be down the centre of a street which may
therefore appear in two enumeration districts. Long streets may be divided
between several enumeration districts. Be certain not to miss any portion,
particularly where no house numbers are stated in the returns. Some larger
streets may form the boundaries between Registrars' Districts and so may appear
on two or more piece numbers.

If
searching on the internet (as will be the usual case) it should be noted that
not all of the providers offer street indexes. the indexes provided at
www.findmypast.org.uk offer
comprehensive street indexes.

Census Problems and Pitfalls
Census
data cannot be accepted at face value. The process of collecting, recording and
transcribing the information provided many opportunities for error and omission
and care must be taken to try to corroborate any information found. Areas in
which problems may arise include:

The person was
not enumerated or their schedule was lost. This probably applies to a small but
significant number of individuals and families.

Transcription
errors may have distorted the name or other data. This is particularly
troublesome when using an index since the person sought may appear to be
missing.

The books for
a given area may have been damaged or lost. These gaps will usually be known to
the local family history society or archive. There are several such areas in and
around Manchester for 1851. See
www.1851-unfilmed.org.uk for more information about these returns.

A street you
are looking for may have changed name between the date of the source in which
the street name was found and the census date. House numbers may also change.

If the
householder was illiterate the enumerator or a friend will have written down his
spoken answers. Personal and place names may be spelled phonetically and not as
expected, particularly if remote from the census place.

Middle names
may be omitted (they were excluded from the 1841 census but occasionally appear)
or only an initial given. "Pet" names may also be used, Sally for Sarah, Jack
for John etc.

Ages are
particularly unreliable. People may deliberately have given an incorrect age or
may not have known their age. This is evidenced by individuals who age less then
10 years between successive censuses and by the tendency for ages of 40, 50, 60
etc. to appear more frequently than might be expected, particularly in 1851 and
1861.

Relationships
must be treated with care. "Cousin" may mean nephew or other kin. If a married
couple are living with parents, occasionally their children are described as son
& daughter when they should be grandson & granddaughter (i.e. relationship to
head). Son/Daughter-in-law may mean stepson/daughter.

Birthplaces
may be incorrect. A person may not know where he was born, only the place of
which they had the earliest memories. Concern about "removal" under the Poor Law
may have led people to say they were born in the town or village where they were
living.

Some very
young infants may have been omitted.

Statisticians'
pencil marks may obscure all or part of an entry. They may also look like ticks
in the "blind, deaf or dumb" column suggesting infirmities which did not exist.

Why
the Census is Useful
The
census returns show us individuals in their family context and so immediately
may identify parents and siblings. There is, however, other useful information
which can be derived:

The age and
birthplace can assist in locating a birth. This is particularly useful if the
person was born before civil registration and parish registers have to be
searched.

The wider
family may include in-laws and so suggest a wife's maiden name. It may also
include a widowed parent or grandparent and so as well as confirming a
relationship will provide an upper time limit when searching for the death of
the deceased partner.

Study of the
occupations of neighbouring families will enable you to gain some idea of the
socio-economic position of your family. The number (if any) and nature of
servants employed may also indicate relative prosperity.

The presence
of step-children will indicate a wife's previous marriage but note that because
relationships are to the head of household, there will be no indication in this
way of a husband's earlier marriages.

The
birthplaces of children will provide an indication of former residences and
approximate dates. This can be helpful when a child is 10 or 20 years old as it
suggests where to look in earlier censuses.

Some
General Tips
The
following suggestions may help you get the most out of the census:

Note the piece
and folio number in case you wish to return for another search. Keep note of
areas searched.

If you find your family in
a census transcript, check the original, some of the details may have been
mis-transcribed.

Take a look at
other families living nearby and note any with the same surname (unless it is
very common). Children, when married, would often live close to their parents.

Try to find
your person in two or more successive censuses. Details of name, age and
birthplace may differ.

People living
in cities would usually rent their house. They may move at least once between
census years. They will, however, frequently not move far.

Note that some
occupational descriptions can be misleading. "Independent Means" does not
necessarily mean substantial assets. It may mean "reliant on children's
charity". Scholar implies a child is receiving some form of education but this
may not necessarily mean full-time schooling.

References

A Clearer
Sense of the Census, Edward Higgs, HMSO (an update of his earlier Making Sense
of the Census and the best book on census history and records)

Making Use of
the Census, Susan Lumas, TNA (A good practical guide to using the records)